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Before you spend a single dime on your mobile social media marketing, check this list:

Early Pic of Mobile Marketing (Photo Courtesy The Guardian)

1 – Mobilize the “mindset” and develop a total mobile social media strategy “thought Leadership” plan. That is, mobilize the way you think about everything in your marketing mix including the words you use in your messaging. Focus on key areas of your expertise and blog about that people would be interested in and make them want to learn about you and your solutions. It will always be about content, content and content whether movies, products or services designed for the user.

2 – Mesmerize and Make Memorable – Steve Jobs, among his many great talents, was a great presenter. Whether you are onstage live, webinar, video, app, TV, print or other medium be sure to mesmerize your audience to make it memorable over a long time. Casablanca, Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz were all produced more than 60 years ago but, if you have seen anyone of them, they are all still vivid in your mind. Forgetting the “device” and making the message memorable is something you can and should do in every part of your content production and delivery.

3 – Materialize Localize – There is much to talk about going mobile but it starts with location marketing. Reverse the thinking and think about mobilize selling anywhere. Even if you are a location-dependent business expand you thinking to sell anywhere. Restaurants become caterers and delivery anywhere. Travel providers offer tours closer to customers reducing costs raising customer options.

4 – Monetize Everything – the most significant transformation in content is figuring out how to make money at it. If you saw The Social Network, Eduardo was focused on monetizing Facebook from the beginning but Mark was not. Bet your boots that Mark is totally focused on monetizing Facebook now with billions of banners he once dismissed as uncool. Freemium models (where apps are free but fees are generated with upgrades) abound, CPC-cost per click and CPM-cost per thousand of clicks seem to rule the day. However, like any transformational technology other means will emerge like “giving away razors to sell blades” ruled at one time. “Happy meals” and movie toy giveaways are winners in the “burger wars” are also now winning in the mobile-ruled world. Start with monetizing your shopping bags – charge for them and call them “green” and they make them into mobile billboards.

5 – Maneuver and Modify Your Message – If you don’t know your brand message, then look at your competitors to see what they are saying. You can then maneuver your way into building your own “thought leadership” messaging. If you think you are the market leader, then realize others are targeting your top spot and build defensive strategies. Always be mindful that even the most ardent customers get easily bored and easily distracted by others. Simply put, top of mind keeps you first in line when they buy.

6 – Measure Metrics – Not really a fan to overkill on metrics because managers get consumed by the metrics and miss opportunities to maximize message. Time spent on managing metrics can focus on overly narrow results. Make metrics measureable, however, realize numbers are not the only way to measuring marketing success.

7 – Move to Self-Service Selling – Extending your sales channels from inside to others including self-service sales is not new. Another means to expand self-service selling is via membership and belonging which has always been core to a personal or online social experience. Facebook was built on this concept realizing that “everything is social.”

Even if you are committed to totally personal selling cover your bets with online selling. The point is to do both onsite and online. Newsletters, ads, events, tradeshows are great examples of outbound going to the customer. Pinterest, Facebook banner ads and Google adwords are examples of inbound where customers come looking for you. If you don’t have an app for iPhone/iPad and Android, get one now.

8 – Monitor IP-Intellectual Property and Legal issues – Corporate compliance and discovery is not just for the larger businesses but for all businesses. Tracking content distribution and protecting brand against hackers, staff conversations and reviewing business agreements is all part of having company IP history.

9 – Mobilize business processes and staff – Probably the simplest concept to understand is telecommuting. You can expand your business by as much as 40% by simply allowing those staffers interested in work at home or even part-time to work at home or wherever they want. In this approach, you begin to realize the mobility of business activities even for those where “being there” is really critical. Not all business activities need F2F interaction or movement by a vehicle to get it done.

10 – Marshal management – If you have read this far, one of the most important points we can suggest is not just redesign your website for mobile access but redesign rather mobilize corporate management as well. For example, Chanel.com has a unique mobile version of their website to be viewed by smartphones and tablets. There are many other examples of great mobile websites. Why do this because 50% or more viewers see your website on their smartphones/tablets. This also means that some users only see websites via mobile. Remember to always look toward the future and keep your vision focused and evolve as customers and markets change and change you along the way or change will change you and often for the worse. For more than thirty years, the faster you can communicate, the faster you can change, and those corporations that change the fastest will be the most successful.

We provide a complimentary mobile social media marketing evaluation – call 303-594-1694 or email cross@gocross.com, if you are interested.

Most people hate being organized but yet some people love making lists for things that have to be done. Still others for whom the very idea of creating a to-do list is, you pick the adjective that fits. The fact is that there are many benefits of making, at least, some to-do lists. In essence, a to-do list is a list that lists all the things that you have to accomplish within time frame or rather deadline, not often referred to as a “hard stop.” These action oriented time-dependent items can be easily ticked off the list when they are completed which ensures that you don’t forget to get something done and hopefully get it done.

A completed to-do list will give you the satisfaction of being on the top of your game and you will only feel more in control of your life. There are many other benefits of to-do lists.

Benefits of Writing it Down

These to-do lists allow you to concentrate your focus on a task that is both important and urgent. This way you and possibly others to prioritize everything that you or they need to accomplish and work the way through the list in a given time frame. Putting things down in writing helps people to prioritize as well as think clearly knowing that there is no aspect of planning that you have missed. This also helps you and your teammates or colleagues focus on a particular task that is high on your priority to-do list. When you already know what you have to accomplish on a given day or even week, it becomes easy to manage the time to actually get the task done.

Another benefit of writing down ideas to comprise a to-do list is that it frees your mind. It is very similar to a movie that impressed audiences in the summer of 2011 called X-Men: First Class. There is a scene in that movie when the character Erik Lehnsherr is talking to Raven or Mystique about the fact that she could reach her full capabilities if she stopped concentrating on being normal. He told her natural self was blue skin and she should accept that and not worry about blending in all of the time. By trying to blend in, she was wasting concentration power and by looking like a normal human was forcing her brain to utilize a section of it that could be devoted to harnessing her full strength and mental capacity.

Making a to-do-list also falls under the same concept. It frees your mind. When you have the notion in your head in regards to a task that needs to be completed, just write it down. Compile a list or put in a calendar like iSportcal, CrossPinPoints or iREcal. Then you do not have to continue to remind yourself about it or think about it as the day or days go on. In addition, writing something down reinforces that idea into your mind anyway.

Finding Like Tasks

There may be come tasks that have certain similarities. For example, you may need to speak with one person to get two kinds of information or two stores that you need to visit for specific items but that are in close proximity to each other. You will be able to work out a better routine once you can see the likenesses between the tasks.

Be Calmer

In case you are still not convinced, to-do lists are known to decrease stress and anxiety. Writing it all down gives you a clear plan of how to make it happen which in turn, removes the ambiguity out of the situation. Not only are to-do lists a great boon to effective time management, they also help you with energy management. You can pace yourself through the day, depending on what needs to be accomplished so that you do not end up too tired at the end of the day or week. This sort of touches on what was mentioned before about allowing your mind to concentrate on the task at hand rather than focusing on something that needs to be completed at some point in the near future.

Using Technology

Creating to-do lists is one of the top principles and tips of functioning time management. You will be able to assign a set number of hours or even minutes in a day to obtain the biggest as well as the minutest things that should be tackled. Many people become bogged down by the whole paper-pen aspect of creating lists. With advances in technology, this is no longer the case. You can easily use our a multimedia todo list, calendar/planner like iFlipTips, and/or your smartphone to create effective & poignant to-do lists that you can update and change while on the run and have you complete a task. After all, there is not any reason to keep a task around if you have already managed to complete it. So make that to-list or even better put it in a calendar and stop procrastinating.